


Sorcery for Sanctity

by MumblingSage



Series: A witch or a saint [2]
Category: Constantine (TV)
Genre: Anne Marie x Celibacy OTP, Gen, Platonic Love, Post-Canon, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Roman Catholicism, faith - Freeform, ladies admiring ladies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-25
Updated: 2015-01-25
Packaged: 2018-03-09 01:32:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3231218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MumblingSage/pseuds/MumblingSage
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And then there was the Old Testament—in the word of God, she read “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.”<br/>And yet He had. Here she was. And here was John.<br/>“Like I said, there’s no reason for you to holy off down south so soon.”<br/>She smiled, not quite laughing, realizing even as she did that she was using one of John’s favorite methods of deflection. In her case, a soft no. Or a yes—yes, there was every reason.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sorcery for Sanctity

**Author's Note:**

> So I made Thepurposeofplaying a promise that I would write fix-it fic after the Saint of Last Resorts Part 2, but as it happened, I don't feel like there's anything I needed to fix! So instead this is a sort of celebratory flash piece wrapping up some loose ends. That includes loose ends from my prequel, "Judas," so some references will appear. Now everyone can finally see what I was on about with that Machen quote. 
> 
> And shout-out to Sapphy for introducing me to the Catullan Hymn to Diana, which does fit Anne Marie oddly well for a nun. Sapphy's remix of "Judas" provided a real jolt of energy for fic-writing, too!

_Lady of mountains, and the gate_

_That leads into the greenwood’s shade,_  
 _The hidden glade, the stream that sings…_  
 _You, goddess of the triple ways_  
 _That meet by Moon’s reflected light._  
 _You, who by your monthly course_  
 _Measure the passage of the year,_  
 _And fill with corn and luscious fruit_  
 _The farmer’s barns and spacious loft._  
 _May it please you, as of old,_  
 _That you preserve from harm and grief_  
 _We sons of wolf-child Romulus._

Cutullus, Hymn to Diana

When Anne Marie was very young, she had picked up a weird story by the Welsh author Arthur Machen. _Weird_ was the genre—at first she thought it was like a fairy tale, but unlike a fairy tale, the magic in a weird story always seemed real. It was uncanny enough to believe in.

 _“Sorcery and sanctity,”_ Machen’s characters said, “ _these are the only realities_.” They were more than reality, they were morality; ultimate good and evil. Sanctity being the side of good, of course. But the story dealt with the sorcerous side, and Anne Marie couldn’t see how anything so fascinating was evil.

She was a precocious reader. She also picked up _Acts of the Apostles,_ where she read about a magician burning all his books when he came to the Lord. And then there was the Old Testament—in the word of God, she read _“Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.”_

And yet He had. Here she was. And here was John.

“Like I said, there’s no reason for you to holy off down south so soon.”

She smiled, not quite laughing, realizing even as she did that she was using one of John’s favorite methods of deflection. _That’s a matter of perspective_. In her case, a soft no. Or a yes—yes, there was every reason.

“We always made a great pair.”

“It seems we’ve both grown up since then.” 

He stopped mirroring her smile, then. “I know I’ve never had the chance to say this, but—I know what I put you through, and I’m sorry.”

Anne Marie wondered what he meant specifically—the séance in Newcastle? The sex before that, his running out on her after the most mindblowing orgasm of her life, unable to face the consequences of it? Or this most recent exorcism, did he think he had to apologize for that?

“No, you’re not,” she said. “John Constantine doesn’t do ‘sorry’.”

She bent near and kissed his cheek, a sisterly kiss, a motherly kiss. Even as she moved, she was half waiting for him to turn his head and capture her mouth with his, the way he once had a long time ago. John didn’t. And that was good, that was right.

For years she’d dreamed and daydreamed about kissing him again, even after Newcastle, even as a novice, but she’d had that now, hadn’t she? Kissed his very soul out when she thought it was her last chance, where there’d been a very real possibility that he was about to sacrifice her like he sacrificed so many people, in service to a greater cause.

On the drive up from Mexico, Chas had told her about Gary Lester.

But then, she’d been ready to sacrifice John, too. After seeing him threaten the child (though even now she thought surely he wouldn’t have done it; surely it was a sign of the terrible risk this Rising Darkness posed that he would even act as if he could. But just playing at it was enough, was too much).

She’d forgiven him. He’d never blamed her. And now, Anne Marie had started to forgive herself.  

“It took me almost twenty years to figure that out.”

But even as she started up the stairs, she let her hand linger on John’s, a touch to say everything her words couldn’t. A sister’s touch, a mother’s touch, a lover’s touch. She’d been all of them to him, some sort of trifold goddess ( _puissant Trivia,_ went some translation of Catullus, another bit of her reading) with John Constantine her only worshipper. The only worshipper any goddess needed, she thought.

Then she thought, one too many. Because twenty years had made her wiser, and she knew faith shouldn’t be put in things as fallible as mortals.

At the thought, she looked down through the stairs to see Zed, joining Chas and John in another sort of trinity. She envied them that closeness, even as she prayed it would endure. She admired Zed’s faith, and admired even more how generous she was with it. Not just faith in John, and not really faith in God, but in something big enough to somehow encompass those very disparate poles: faith in good intentions, in courage and hope, in love.

Her hand still felt warm from John’s skin. She’d touched him so much these past days—his shoulder, his chest, his forehead—a ministering touch, although in times past she would have relished the idea of playing her hands all over him while he writhed in bonds in _quite_ different circumstances. She hoped that fleeting thought, coming as she was flush with relief and gratitude and something like triumph, wouldn’t count as the sin of lust. She had no idea how she could ever confess it.

And lust, she thought, had its place in every life, although in hers it was a very small one. At least that meant she had never confused it with love.

_The shriveled nothing who only felt alive in John Constantine’s shadow, barely worth his one night of pity…_

_My first love…_

Sometimes compassion was the only virtue that made any sense.

So here she went, holying down south, where Mother Church had sent her. Crawling back to her convent, thank you very much. She was going home. She had an engagement, as it happened.

It felt appropriate that after everything, Anne Marie would find herself settled in a platonic marriage to God.  

As her pulse thrummed, she felt the warm flush across her chest, and the ache where the brand of the cross was slowly healing.

On the drive north, she’d continued her Novena for Martina. She fingered her rosary now. The talisman—like a magic wand and an icon all in one—could not only serve as an anchor to her bilocation but also perform this stranger ritual, a long and quiet act of reverence that produced no amazing and obvious results, no pyrotechnics of the sort John loved. An act of faith.

And there were the candles waiting for her back at the convent. She’d light more to go with her prayers, including one for Gary Lester. She’d lit so many—for Astra, for Martina, even for John, for that brief and terrible day when she’d thought candles were all she could give for him anymore.

She remembered a brief and wonderful night, hot wax bathing his skin, her cruel and gentle and well-intentioned effort to make up a ritual, out of passion, out of love, that could save him.

Who would have thought holy water would have done the trick, in the end?

Anne Marie paused to wrap the rosary beads around her knuckles, and wondered how hard it would to return to a world of faith in invisible things, without evidence. The Church had order, clear rules for right and wrong, but her results within it were quieter. Things like a healthy baby wrapped tight in a blanket, a bag of gummy candy begged from a janitor to feed a new mother’s sweet tooth. Compared to what she had done and seen before, they _were_ miracles, they were, but earthly ones. She was leaving the metaphysical battles for John to fight.

She could hear the babble of water and the crank of the mill wheel from the other side of the outer wall. As she was about to throw open the door, she caught a glimpse of something in the shadows. Of someone. A man, dark-skinned and golden-eyed with vast silver wings. His expression was grave yet warm, and she sensed an air around him of…gentleness. Compassion. For her? Or for…

She glanced behind her, down to the murmuring trio on the lower floor, and when she looked back John’s angel was gone.

And it was time for her to go, too. John Constantine would fight the Rising Darkness with the tools she’d taught him, and with his faithful friends at his side.

As Anne Marie stepped out of the mill house into the dusk, she held the first bead of her rosary between right thumb and forefinger and mouthed, _Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee…_


End file.
